


I can't be your second best (Close but not your favorite)

by Ineffablemurderhusbands



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Longing, Oblivious Doctor (Doctor Who), Pining, Sleep talking, Unrequited Love, Yaz's POV, listen to midnight love, poor yaz
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:48:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24379717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ineffablemurderhusbands/pseuds/Ineffablemurderhusbands
Summary: The Doctor always calls the same name in her sleep.Yaz ponders in the life choices that made her a consolation prize to the woman she loves.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/River Song, Thirteenth Doctor/Yasmin Khan
Comments: 4
Kudos: 48





	I can't be your second best (Close but not your favorite)

**Author's Note:**

> Listen, I am sorry but I was listening to midnight love by girl in red and couldn't help but wonder about this plot, so here it is. Angsty stuff.

Yaz knew this was her own fault and she was the only one to blame. It had started simple enough. One night when Graham and Ryan had already gone to bed, only her and the Doctor remained in the console room. Yaz liked to watch as the blonde woman tinkered beneath the console table and muttered to herself. Yaz thought she was adorable and her heart ached in longing every time she looked at her face.

Yaz wasn’t sure what had come over her that night but when the Doctor got up she had a grease stain on her cheek and she was smiling beautifully because her work under the console table had gone right for once, so Yaz had kissed her. She couldn’t help herself, she just went and did it. And best yet, the Doctor let her. The Doctor let Yaz kiss her like she was a drowning woman and the Doctor was her last breath. The Doctor let Yaz move them to her bedroom and the Doctor let Yaz love her that night. When they were finished and the Doctor was sleeping peacefully next to her on the bed, Yaz felt ecstatic. And she would feel that way for the next few weeks when they found themselves in the secrecy of the night time, secluded away in Yaz’s bedroom as they let themselves be involved in the throes of passion and lust.

But of course not everything could be happiness all the time. The Doctor sometimes fell asleep after they were done and Yaz liked to watch her sleep since she almost never did it. She hadn’t done it that first night since she was also tired but she liked to watch her always when she could. One of those nights she had been staring at the Doctor’s face and caressing her blonde hair softly when she heard:

“River…”

It was a soft murmur so Yaz wasn’t sure what it was when she heard it. Then the Doctor said it another time more clearly. Yaz was confused at first, she wasn’t sure why the Doctor was whispering it in her sleep. Why would she murmur a type of body of water? It made no sense. Was she dreaming of a place that she had went? It took Yaz two more nights to realize it was a person. She felt anger at first. How could the Doctor be muttering lovingly the name of another person while she was naked in Yaz’s bed? She tried breaching the subject when they were awake and alone but somehow she could never bring herself to do it. Yaz knew the TARDIS wouldn’t tell her something that the Doctor didn’t want her to know and poaching the Doctor so she would talk about her past relationships hadn’t bared any fruits. So every night Yaz suffered as she watched the woman of her life muttering what she guessed was another woman’s name.

“Who is she to you, Doctor?” She whispered to the darkness one of those nights were the Doctor was softly sighing the woman’s name.

Yaz wondered what she looked like and what she had done for the Doctor to miss her so. The Doctor always muttered her name with a soft smile in her face or with a frown and a sad tone of voice. Sometimes she sighed the name the same way she sighed Yaz’s when they were in bed together. Those nights were the most difficult ones for Yaz. Thinking that even if she was there for the Doctor in the most intimate of ways, the Doctor still longed for someone else. Yaz felt like a second best option, like she was a consolation prize for the Doctor. Like there was someone much better that she could be with right now but wasn’t and Yaz was just a willing body. Yaz always gave her all to the Doctor and she knew she was receiving merely a part of her. It hurt. It hurt to be a secret, it hurt that she wasn’t the Doctor’s first option, it hurt that the Doctor didn’t love her as much as the woman she whispered the name of in her sleep.

Sometimes during the day the Doctor got this forlorn look in her eyes, like she was thinking of something else. Now Yaz knew that she was probably thinking of someone else.

Yaz wished she was strong enough to resist her. She wished she had more self-respect. But every time the Doctor looked at her, she melted and couldn’t resist going off to some corner together. Even if her mind told her that she deserved more than be a second option, her heart couldn’t and wouldn’t give the Doctor up. All that Yaz wanted was for the Doctor to look her way and choose her first, but during those nights Yaz could almost pretend that the Doctor was entirely hers. And it was better to have a slight part of the Doctor than not have anything at all. Or at least that was what Yaz told herself every time she laid next to the Doctor and overheard her calling for this River.

Yaz sometimes wondered what she would say to this woman if she ever met her. She didn’t know how she would react, even if she knew that she probably wouldn’t confront the woman about it because ultimately it wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t even the Doctor’s fault, the fault was entirely on Yaz’s shoulders or so she thought. Yaz was the one that had fallen in love. Yaz had been in love with the Doctor much before they slept together and they had never discussed feelings and relationship status once they started being intimate with each other. Maybe if they did, Yaz would know the truth about this River and how important she was to the Doctor. Maybe if she knew, she could have guarded her heart a little better. Maybe if they had talked, now she wouldn’t grit her teeth every time she heard the Doctor whispering the name in her sleep. But those were a lot of “ifs”.

Yaz hoped that someday she could learn how to say no when the Doctor looked at her **that** way. But until it happened she would have to learn how to cohabitate with the ghost of River. Because she knew that her presence would never be misplaced from the Doctor’s heart. 

**Author's Note:**

> also I wanted to know if I could write something without dialogue.


End file.
